I'll let everyone draw their own conclusions.
Page 56
“[T]hey’re rioting down there at the Capitol,” the employee
repeated. “Oh really?” the President asked. “All right, let’s go see.”459
459 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of
White House Employee, (June 10, 2022), p. 27. The Select Committee is not revealing the identity of this witness to
guard against the risk of retaliation; See “Donald Trump Speech ‘Save America’ Rally Transcript January 6,” Rev,
(Jan. 6, 2021), available at
https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts...ly-transcript-
january-6 (timestamping the speech).
~~~~~~~Three hours later he deiced to do something. ~~~~~
mid page 65
Also at 2:24 p.m., knowing the riot was underway and that Vice President Pence was
at the Capitol, President Trump sent this tweet:
Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect
our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected
set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to
previously certify. USA demands the truth!509
Evidence shows that the 2:24 p.m. tweet immediately precipitated further violence at
the Capitol. Immediately after this tweet, the crowds both inside and outside of the Capitol
building violently surged forward. 510 Outside the building, within ten minutes thousands of
rioters overran the line on the west side of the Capitol that was being held by the Metropolitan
Police Force’s Civil Disturbance Unit, the first time in history of the DC Metro Police that such
a security line had ever been broken. 511
Virtually everyone in the White House staff the Select Committee interviewed
condemned the 2:24 p.m. tweet in the strongest terms.
Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger told the Select Committee that
the 2:24 p.m. tweet was so destructive that it convinced him to resign as soon as possible:
One of my aides handed me a sheet of paper that contained the tweet that you just
read. I read it and was quite disturbed by it. I was disturbed and worried to see that
the President was attacking Vice President Pence for doing his constitutional duty.
66
So the tweet looked to me like the opposite of what we really needed at that moment,
which was a de-escalation. And that is why I had said earlier that it looked like fuel
being poured on the fire.
So that was the moment that I decided that I was going to resign, that that would be
my last day at the White House. I simply didn’t want to be associated with the events
with the events that were unfolding at the Capitol.512
Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews had a similar reaction:
So it was obvious that the situation at the Capitol was violent and escalating quickly.
And so I thought that the tweet about the Vice President was the last thing that was
needed in that moment.
And I remember thinking that this was going to be bad for him to tweet this, because
it was essentially him giving the green light to these people, telling them that what
they were doing at the steps of the Capitol and entering the Capitol was okay, that
they were justified in their anger.
And he shouldn’t have been doing that. He should have been telling these people to go
home and to leave and to condemn the violence that we were seeing.
And I am someone who has worked with him, you know, I worked on the campaign,
traveled all around the country, going to countless rallies with him, and I have seen
the impact that his words have on his supporters. They truly latch onto every word
and every tweet that he says.
And so, I think that in that moment for him to tweet out the message about Mike
Pence, it was him pouring gasoline on the fire and making it much worse. 513
Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere stated the following:
Committee Staff: What was your reaction when you saw that tweet?
Deere: Extremely unhelpful.
Committee Staff: Why?
Deere: It wasn’t the message that we needed at that time. It wasn’t going to – the
scenes at the U.S. Capitol were only getting worse at that point. This was not going
to help that.514
White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told the Select Committee, “I don’t remember when
exactly I heard about that tweet, but my reaction to it is that’s a terrible tweet, and I disagreed
with the sentiment. And I thought it was wrong.” 515
67
Likewise, Counselor to the President Hope Hicks texted a colleague that evening:
“Attacking the VP? Wtf is wrong with him”.516
At 2:26 p.m., Vice President Pence was again moved to a different location. 517
President Trump had the TV on in the dining room.518 At 2:38 p.m., Fox News was
showing video of the chaos and attack, with tear gas filling the air in the Capitol Rotunda.
And a newscaster reported, “[T]his is a very dangerous situation.”519 This is the context in
which Trump sent the tweet.
Testimony obtained by the Committee indicates that President Trump knew about the
rioters’ anger at Vice President Mike Pence, and indicated something to the effect that “Mike
[Pence] deserves it.” 520
As Cassidy Hutchinson explained:
I remember Pat saying something to the effect of, “Mark, we need to do
something more. They’re literally calling for the Vice President to be f’ing
hung.” And Mark had responded something to the effect of, “You heard him,
Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they're doing anything
wrong.” To which Pat said something, “[t]his is f’ing crazy, we need to be
doing something more,” briefly stepped into Mark’s office, and when Mark had
said something – when Mark had said something to the effect of, “He doesn’t
think they’re doing anything wrong,” knowing what I had heard briefly in the
dining room coupled with Pat discussing the hanging Mike Pence chants in the
lobby of our office and then Mark’s response, I understood “they’re” to be the
rioters in the Capitol that were chanting for the Vice President to be hung.521
Although White House Counsel Pat Cipollone was limited in what he would discuss
because of privilege concerns, he stated the following:
Committee Staff: Do you remember any discussion at any point during the day
about rioters at the Capitol chanting “hang Mike Pence?”
Cipollone: Yes. I remember – I remember hearing that – about that. Yes.
Committee Staff: Yeah. And –
Cipollone: I don’t know if I observed that myself on TV. I don’t remember.
Committee Staff: I'm just curious, I understand the privilege line you’ve drawn,
but do you remember what you can share with us about the discussion about
those chants, the ‘hang Mike Pence’ chants?
Cipollone: I could tell you my view of that.
Committee Staff: Yeah. Please.
Cipollone: My view of that is that is outrageous.
68
Committee Staff: Uh-huh.
Cipollone: And for anyone to suggest such a thing as the Vice President of the United
States, for people in that crowd to be chanting that I thought was terrible. I thought it
was outrageous and wrong. And I expressed that very clearly to people. 522
Almost immediately after the 2:24 p.m. tweet, Eric Herschmann went upstairs in the
West Wing to try to enlist Ivanka Trump’s assistance to persuade her father to do the right
thing.523
Ivanka rushed down to the Oval Office dining room. Although no one could convince
President Trump to call for the violent rioters to leave the Capitol, Ivanka persuaded President
Trump that a tweet could be issued to discourage violence against the police.
At 2:38 p.m., President Trump sent this tweet:
“Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of
our Country. Stay peaceful!”524
While some in the meeting invoked executive privilege, or failed to recall the specifics,
others told us what happened at that point. Sarah Matthews, the White House Deputy Press
Secretary, had urged her boss, Kayleigh McEnany, to have the President make a stronger
statement. But she informed us that President Trump resisted using the word “peaceful” in
his message:
[Q]: Ms. Matthews, Ms. McEnany told us she came right back to the press office
after meeting with the President about this particular tweet. What did she tell
you about what happened in that dining room?
[A]: When she got back, she told me that a tweet had been sent out. And I told
her that I thought the tweet did not go far enough, that I thought there needed
to be a call to action and he needed to condemn the violence. And we were in a
room full of people, but people weren’t paying attention. And so, she looked
directly at me and in a hushed tone shared with me that the President did not
want to include any sort of mention of peace in that tweet and that it took some
convincing on their part, those who were in the room. And she said that there
was a back and forth going over different phrases to find something that he
was comfortable with. And it wasn’t until Ivanka Trump suggested the phrase
‘stay peaceful’ that he finally agreed to include it.”525
At 3:13 p.m., President Trump sent another tweet, but again declined to tell people to
go home:
“I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence!
Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great
men and women in Blue. Thank you!”526
Almost everyone, including staff in the White House also found the President’s 2:38
p.m. and 3:13 p.m. tweets to be insufficient because they did not instruct the rioters to leave
the Capitol. As mentioned, President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., texted Meadows:
69
He’s got to condem [sic] this shit. Asap. The captiol [sic] police tweet is not
enough. 527
Sean Hannity also texted Mark Meadows:
Can he make a statement. I saw the tweet. Ask people to peacefully leave the
capital [sic].528
None of these efforts resulted in President Trump immediately issuing the message
that was needed. White House staff had these comments:
Pottinger: Yeah. It was insufficient. I think what – you you could count me
among those who was hoping to see an unequivocal strong statement clearing
out the Capitol, telling people to stand down, leave, go home. I think that’s
what we were hoping for. 529
...
Matthews: Yeah. So a conversation started in the press office after the
President sent out those two tweets that I deemed were insufficient.... I
thought that we should condemn the violence and condemn it unequivocally.
And I thought that he needed to include a call to action and to tell these people
to go home. 530
And they were right. Evidence showed that neither of these tweets had any appreciable
impact on the violent rioters. Unlike the video-message tweet that did not come until 4:17
finally instructing rioters to leave, neither the 2:38 nor the 3:13 tweets made any difference.
At some point after 3:05 p.m. that afternoon, President Trump’s Chief of Staff – and
President Trump himself – were informed that someone was shot.531
That person was Ashli
Babbitt, who was fatally shot at 2:44 p.m. as she and other rioters tried to gain access to the
House chamber. 532
There is no indication that this affected the President’s state of mind that
day, and we found no evidence that the President expressed any remorse that day.
Meanwhile, leaders in Congress – including Speaker Pelosi, Senator Schumer, Senator
McConnell – and the Vice President, were taking action. They called the Secretary of Defense,
the Attorney General, governors and officials in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of
Columbia, begging for assistance.533
President-elect Biden also broadcast a video calling on President Trump to take action:
I call on President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath
and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege.534
President Trump could have done this, of course, anytime after he learned of the
violence at the Capitol. At 4:17 p.m., 187 minutes after finishing his speech (and even longer
after the attack began), President Trump finally broadcast a video message in which he asked
those attacking the Capitol to leave:
70
I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from
us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side,
but you have to go home now. We have to have peace.535
President Trump’s Deputy Press Secretary, Sarah Matthews testified about her reaction
to this video message:
[H]e told the people who we had just watched storm our nation’s Capitol with
the intent on overthrowing our democracy, violently attack police officers, and
chant heinous things like, “Hang Mike Pence,” “We love you. You’re very
special.” As a spokesperson for him, I knew that I would be asked to defend
that. And to me, his refusal to act and call off the mob that day and his refusal
to condemn the violence was indefensible. And so, I knew that I would be
resigning that evening.536
..........
